Professors Urged to Endorse Statement That Zionism is a National Liberation Movement

Jewish college professors are being asked by Prof. Milton R. Konvitz of Cornell University to endorse a one-paragraph affirmation of “Zionism as a movement of Jewish liberation and cultural renascence” and repudiation as “manifestations of anti-Semitism” any “attacks upon Zionism which attempt to separate it from authentic Jewishness.” The statement also favors the strengthening of Israel “as the embodiment of the prophetic vision of justice and peace” and the preservation of “the identity of the Jewish people” through Jewish education. Konvitz and the other 12 formulators of the statement declared that “the time has come to condemn forthrightly efforts to discredit the Jewish people and the State of Israel through blatant anti-Zionist propaganda” and to “reject the insidious attempts to separate the interests of the Jewish people from the State of Israel and their fellow Jews in the Soviet Union.” The formulators included Salo Baron, Columbia University; Marver H. Bernstein, Princeton University; Haim Ginott, New York University; Abraham J. Heschel, Jewish Theological Seminary; Horace Kallen, New York School for Social Research; Seymour M. Lipset, Harvard University; Albert Sabin, Board of Trustees, New York University, and president of the Weizmann Institute; Judah Shapiro, Hebrew Union College, N.Y.; and Elie Wiesel, noted author and lecturer.